Apple Car: Prospects, Rumors and Predictions

Apple reportedly is aiming to release a smart car with automotive elements in 2019. A recent report from Daisuke Wakabayashi of The Wall Street Journal confirms this. The report also said that the company has strong commitments behind the projects and referred it as a committed project within the company. Recent plan as per the report is of doubling the number of employees in the project.

Giving fuel to the already spreading rumors on the project, Wall Street Journal reported that this new project is going to be named as Project Titan and reportedly the Apple Car would hit the road by 2019.

But what prospects can we envisage for this car and what expectations can we set from this futuristic car? Answering these questions obviously cannot go without deciphering the rumors that spread around this project. Here we are going to have a look at some of these credible rumors, predictions and expectations regarding this new car.

The Project Titan

Rumors in tech circuits apart, the earliest credible prediction and report concerning the Apple Car came from The Wall Street Journal in February this year. As per the reports of the journal, hundreds of people have been hired and presently working on the project for an electric car and the whole project has been maintained strictly secret. Codenamed as Project Titan it is being led by Steve Zadesky, a Ford veteran whose prominent role in building the iPod is already well known. There is a series of high profile hiring that further strengthens the commitment of the company for this electric car project.

As the tech rival Google is going to enter the autonomous vehicle arena, Apple is likely to speed up its development process for the next smart car and the above mentioned recruits is a sure indication of this. The rumored acquisition of automaker Cupertino that is likely to cost Apple $178 billion shows the committed move of the company towards its electric car.

The first prototype Apple is now working on resembles a minivan, as reported by the journal report, although the final look of the car can change before it hits the road in 2019. The company reportedly has chosen BMW i3 as the base for its upcoming car model.

Something that can give Tesla a run for money

Just a few months before Financial Times reported that Zadesky made trips to Austria just to find a manufacturing partner and this is a strong indication that it is no longer the CarPlay but the actual car that is in the mind now. A Reuter story almost at the same time said that what is in making is a self-driving, autonomous a software game. Lastly an employee of Apple said to Business Insider that the company is really working on something that can give automobile giant Tesla a run for the money.

Aggressive hiring for project Titan

Aggressive hiring of top automobile engineers, designers and automobile techies from top brands for the car project is a serious indication of what Apple is aiming for. In recent times an array of top brass employees from automobile companies like Ford, GM, BMW, Tesla, Volkswagen, and others have been hired by Apple. A majority of its hires in recent past have been people who have established expertise in autonomous and connected vehicle systems.

Recently, as per the reports of Wall Street Journal Doug Betts, a manufacturing expert executive from Fiat Chrysler has been hired by Apple. Apple also hired famous researcher on autonomous vehicle, Paul Furgale. Some of the other important hiring Apple done in recent past include Mujeeb Ijaz, Cchief technology officer of A123 Systems and an expert in experimental cars, Robert Gough, a safety technology expert, Stefan Campbell, a Tesla executive, Johann Jungworth, former leader of the Mercedes-Benz R&D lab,Tom Powell, a Jaguar Land Rover engineer and other major names in the automobile industry.

What would make Apple Car different from others?

With the Project Titan bearing fruit as expected, Apple will lead the race of high tech companies entering the automobile scene with a smart automotive car. In fact it will be the first computer company to have produced a car and that is certainly breakthrough news.

Though it is very likely to be self driving, but even if it fails to be a car of self driving capacity, it will be uniquely smart car as part of the Apple ecosystem of gadgets and apps. With unrestrained link to all Apple gadgets and app ecosystem corresponding to iPhone, Mac, your iPad, and Apple Watch, the car besides driving would have unparalleled smart capabilities and integration with other gadgets.

As experts say that Apple is the only company that is capable now to turn your phone into the car key, the higher standing of Apple in collaborating with diverse tech facets is already well established. After the recent takeover of Cupertino, Apple would be benefited from the manufacturer’s expertise in design and other crucial automobile elements like sensor technologies, mapping and navigation, batteries, and integration of hardware and software.

While the rounds of speculations and expectations will continue regarding this still rumored car of Apple, we can only hope for more credible information from Apple insider.

Advantage of Apple as an outsider in automobile sector

Can BMW make an iPhone? No. But Apple can make iPhone unlocking a car replacing the car key and Apple can transform the dashboard of the car with numerous apps and functionalities from its ecosystem. So, visibly as the tech leader Apple can produce bigger and better tweaks in automobiles to make them more user friendly and smarter. Such is the advantage of Apple as an outsider in automobile industry.

For some years the spirit of innovation and out of the box thinking is down in automobile sector as most companies have a priority to meet regulations and market constraints and has a tendency of not thinking in a outward futuristic way. That is where tech companies driving innovation like Apple and Google creep in.